• contact@ij-reportika.com
Ij reportika Logo

Category: World

Hong Kong police force protesters to wear numbered badges, march in cordon

Editor08 mins

Participants in the first public protest in Hong Kong since a draconian national security law took effect were forced to wear badges and walk within a police cordon last weekend. A few dozen people protesting a proposed land reclamation project and garbage processing facility marched in the eastern district of Tseung Kwan O on Sunday, wearing numbered lanyards and walking within a security ribbon in a manner reminiscent of an elementary school outing. The protest was the first to go ahead since the ruling Chinese Communist Party imposed a national security law on Hong Kong in July 2020, ushering in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and peaceful opposition that has seen dozens of former opposition lawmakers and pro-democracy activists stand trial for “subversion” for holding a primary election. But protesters said the restrictions imposed on them weren’t acceptable. “To be honest, a lot of people including myself feel that wearing numbered lanyards and walking inside a security tape is actually pretty humiliating,” political activist and former Democratic Party member Cyrus Chan told Radio Free Asia at the protest. “A lot of us have years of experience as marshals in the [formerly annual] July 1 demonstrations and the [now-banned] Tiananmen massacre vigils,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.” “We feel as if we are living in a whole new world,” Chan said. “As to whether that’s a brave and beautiful new Hong Kong in which we are free, or one in which we are subject to all manner of restrictions, I hope the government will consider this question.” Protesters had to wear these numbered lanyards during their march in Hong Kong on March 26, 2023. Credit: AFP Dragged around ‘like livestock’ Police earlier gave permission – via a “letter of no objection” – for a women’s rights march in honor of International Women’s Day, but organizers later canceled the event amid threats from police that they would arrest key activists. Sunday’s protest also received a letter of no objection after organizers applied for permission to hold a march of up to 300 people, but with a number of conditions attached, including individually numbered lanyards for each participant and a cordon preventing anyone from joining the protest if they hadn’t been there from the start. “Some lawbreakers may mix into the public meeting and procession to disrupt public order or even engage in illegal violence,” the police letter said by way of explanation. Participants were also told they couldn’t wear masks or cover their faces. “I really don’t like wearing a number, being numbered,” one participant told Radio Free Asia. “It really places limits on the spontaneity of the event, and makes people wary of taking part.” “We were dragged around inside this cordon the whole time like livestock,” they said. “It was really strange.” Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, now living in Australia, said the mask bans first emerged as part of “emergency measures” taken to curb the 2019 protest movement, which had massive popular support for its resistance to the erosion of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms, and its demand for fully democratic elections. Protesters walk within a cordon line wearing number tags during a rally in Hong Kong on March 26, 2023. Credit: Associated Press Color revolution fears Beijing has dismissed the protest movement as the work of “hostile foreign forces” who were trying to foment a “color revolution” in Hong Kong through successive waves of mass protests in recent years. The government last week ordered the takedown of a digital artwork bearing some of the protesters’ names. “There was a lot of opposition [to the mask ban] back then,” Hui said. “Yet they are still using this law three years later, which tells us that the Hong Kong government hasn’t learned any lessons [from the 2019 protest movement].” Hui said the new system is similar to “real-name” requirements typically used to track people’s activities in mainland China, and will likely put participants at greater risk of official reprisals. “The Hong Kong government will definitely be retaliating against participants,” he said. “They may or may not prosecute them, or they could investigate them, or confiscate their travel documents.” “That’s the sort of thing people have been accustomed to seeing in Hong Kong over the past three years,” Hui said, adding that the freedoms of association, assembly and expression enshrined in the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law, now exist in name only. A spokesperson for the Democratic Party said the whole point of a protest is to allow for the airing of public opinion, so the number of participants shouldn’t be limited. The government-run Independent Police Complaints Council said the conditions placed on protesters were “understandable,” and said not every demonstration would necessarily be subject to the same restrictions in future. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Matt Reed.

Read More

For founder’s birthday, North Korean cities ordered to decorate streets with flowers

Editor08 mins

To celebrate the April 15 birthday of North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, authorities have ordered cities and towns to decorate the streets with flowers for the first time in three years, two sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. The holiday is a big deal in North Korea, where it is known as the “Day of the Sun.” Together with the “Day of the Shining Star,” the Feb. 16 birthday of his son, Kim Jong Il, the holiday perpetuates the personality cult surrounding the Kim family, which has ruled the country for three generations. Normally, the capital of Pyongyang and other major cities are decorated with flowers and new propaganda paintings and slogans are splashed across the cities ahead of the Day of the Sun, but that stopped about three years ago in most places due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Authorities want to bring the flowers back this year, even in rural towns and villages, a company official from Pochon county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service Wednesday on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “It seems like an attempt to change the mood in the province, which has gone sour due to ongoing food shortages and a lack of daily necessities,” the source said. North Korea’s food situation was already dire prior to the pandemic but it got worse when authorities shut down the Sino-Korean border and suspended all trade for more than two years. Although rail freight between the northeast Asian neighbors has resumed, North Korea has not yet fully recovered.  Flowers play an important role in the Days of the Sun and Shining Star because both of the late leaders have flower species named after them, a strain of orchid named Kimilsungia, and a strain of begonia named Kimjongilia, although it wasn’t clear if this year’s decoration orders called for either species. People walk in the street decorated with colorful flowers on the occasion of the 110th birth anniversary of late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung, in Pyongyang, April 15, 2022. Credit: Associated Press Paper flowers to make up for shortfall To adorn the streets of Pochon county with flowers, the landscaping management office has had to get creative, making paper flowers to make up for a shortfall of real ones, the source said. “They are growing as many fresh flowers as possible to decorate the center of the town and supplement them with paper flowers if they don’t have enough,” said the source.  “The landscaping management office operates a small vinyl greenhouse but it is difficult to keep the temperature constant, so they have not been able to grow many flowers.” The greenhouse’s temperature is maintained by firewood brought in by employees from the mountainside, it hasn’t been working well. “The office therefore distributed five flower pots to each employee who lives in decent conditions to grow the flowers in their homes,” the source said. Chongjin scramble In Chongjin, one of the country’s largest cities, authorities are scrambling to grow flowers fast enough.  They haven’t had to prepare flowers for the Day of the Sun in three years, and the order took them by surprise, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “This year the Central Committee issued instructions to decorate the roads with flowers to create a festive atmosphere, so the landscaping management office of each district of the city, as well as the city’s flower office are struggling to prepare fresh flowers,” the second source said. “Keeping the right temperature inside the greenhouse is key to growing flowers quickly so that they can be ready for April 15th,” the second source said. “Currently, landscaping management offices and flower offices are spending money that they barely have to buy firewood from the market to maintain the temperature.” This could turn out to be problematic down the road, as the central government has not told the local office that they would finance their firewood purchases, the second source said.  Most residents could care less about the festivities or the flowers, the second source said. “[They] are busy making a living every day have no time to appreciate or think about flowers,” he said. “The authorities’ order to set the holiday atmosphere with flower decorations for the ‘Day of the Sun’ is just a makeshift measure to try to end the dark atmosphere caused by hardships in life.”  Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Read More

Chinese coast guard ship chased out of Vietnam waters

Editor08 mins

A Chinese coast guard ship and a Vietnamese fisheries patrol boat apparently had a tense encounter during the weekend in the South China Sea, coming as close as 10 meters to each other, according to data from Marine Traffic, a ship-tracking website. The data, based on the ships’ automatic identification system (AIS) signals, shows that the China Coast Guard ship, CCG5205, and Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 came “crazy close” to one another at around 7 a.m. on Sunday local time (midnight UTC), said a researcher based in California. As of Monday afternoon (local time), the CCG5205 was operating in Malaysia’s exclusive economic zone after it left Vietnam waters where the Kiem Ngu 278 had been pursuing the considerably larger Chinese ship since March 24, tracking data showed. At one point the two ships were less than 10 meters (32.8 feet) apart, according to Ray Powell, the Project Myoushu (South China Sea) lead at Stanford University, who first spotted the incident at sea. “The Vietnamese ship was pretty bold given the difference in size – the Chinese ship is twice the size of the Vietnamese ship,” Powell said. “It must have been a very tense engagement.” The incident occurred some 50 nautical miles (92.6 kilometers) south of Vanguard Bank, a known South China Sea flashpoint between Vietnam and China. About 90 minutes later, the Chinese ship left Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) where it had been since Friday evening. An EEZ gives a state exclusive access to the natural resources in the waters and in the seabed. Ship-tracking data shows Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 was closely following the Chinese coast guard vessel CCG5205. [Marine Traffic] Last month, the same China Coast Guard ship was accused of approaching about 150 yards (137 meters) from a Philippine Coast Guard ship and pointing a laser at the crew, causing temporary blindness to them. On Feb. 6, the Philippine Coast Guard said that the Chinese ship had “directed a military-grade laser light” twice at the BRP Malapascua, which was on its way to deliver food and supplies to the troops stationed at the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. Manila lodged a diplomatic protest and the U.S. State Department issued a statement supporting “our Philippine allies.” Beijing rejected the allegation, saying the Philippine ship had “intruded into the waters” off the Spratly Islands “without Chinese permission” and the Chinese coast guard ship had “acted in a professional and restrained way.” ‘Too close for comfort’ In the Sunday encounter, Marine Traffic’s past track showed the Chinese CCG5205 and the Vietnamese Kiem Ngu 278 were so close that they could have collided. “Ten meters between ships is really too close for comfort,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional maritime analyst. “Depending on the sea state, the risk of collision is fairly high,” Koh told Radio Free Asia (RFA). A retired Vietnamese Navy senior officer, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic, said the two ships must have narrowly escaped a collision because they were sailing in opposite directions and at a very slow speed. “If they were heading to the same direction a collision would have not been avoidable as the distance is too close and too dangerous,” he said. Chinese ships had deliberately rammed Vietnamese patrol ships in the past, he added, but not in recent years. The CCG5205 left Sanya, in Hainan island, for the current mission on March 11 and entered Vietnam’s EEZ the first time on March 12. It then moved to the overlapping area between claimant states in the South China Sea and Malaysia’s EEZ before entering Vietnam’s EEZ again on March 21 for a couple hours and for the third time on March 24 when the Kiem Ngu 278 chased it. At around midnight UTC on March 26, Vietnam’s Kiem Ngu 278 and China’s CCG5205 were dangerously close. [Marine Traffic] The Kiem Ngu 278, officially named Vietnamese Fisheries Resources Surveillance ship KN-278, is homeported in Vung Tau, south of Ho Chi Minh City. It left base on March 13 and had been following the Chinese vessel closely since. In July 2021, the Kiem Ngu 278 was following another Chinese coast guard ship, the CCG5202, which Vietnam accused of harassing its gas-exploration activities. Six parties hold claims to parts of the South China Sea and its natural resources but China’s claim is the biggest and Beijing has been trying to hinder other countries’ oil and gas activities in the waters inside its self-claimed nine-dash line. A 2,600-ton Chinese survey vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi Si Hao, had lingered inside Vietnam’s EEZ from March 9 until March 25, when it switched off its AIS, according to data from Marine Traffic.  Its whereabouts are currently unknown.

Read More

The detrimental impact of Chinese DWF on the environment

Editor011 mins

With the local and domestic marine life depleted, many of the industrialized nations such as China are looking towards foreign waters to meet the need for seafood. This had led to the exploitation of less industrialized and under-developed nations, especially in Africa and Latin America. Not only are these distant water fishing fleets competing with the local fishermen but also are responsible for overfishing and extraction of unsustainable amounts of seafood through illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities. According to our comprehensive report, China has deployed its distant-water fishing (DWF) vessels across every ocean around the globe. It has also been found guilty of trespassing in the Exclusive Economic Zones of more than 80 countries and fishing outside its EEZ on the high seas. With more than 18,000 boats in the world’s oceans, China has consistently ranked top in seafood production and fish capture. Producing almost 12 million tons of live weight, almost double of Indonesia, the second largest producer, it is quite evident that Chinese DWF is heavily engaged in IUU fishing activities and catching way above the surplus amount. Distant-water fishing fleets are vessels that operate within the EEZs of other countries that have signed access agreements to allow these fleets to fish inside their territories as well as on the high seas. However, the DWFs are only allowed to take the ‘surplus’ fish not caught by the host country against a fee negotiated under the access agreement. According to our findings in the comprehensive report, Chinese authorities have not published any statistics regarding catch or stocks, and these fleets have been catching well above the surplus. In addition, there have been accusations about them falsifying licenses & documentation, espionage & reconnaissance activities, seizing territories, generating a lot of sea waste, and targeting endangered shark species. Pollution caused by the DWF The distant-water fishing vessels travel from one side of the globe to the other side. This means a lot of fuel is consumed during multi-day trips. A trip from China to western Latin America (the East Pacific Ocean) would take around 43 days and a trip to the eastern part of Latin America ( the Mid-Atlantic Ocean) would be completed in approximately 49 days on a ship going at the speed of 10kt. Assuming that one of these trawlers is powered by a 5000 HP engine, fuel consumption for one of these trips to Ecuador would be 416,783.27 gallons for a petrol engine and 283,063.88 gallons for a diesel one. Similarly, from China to Brazil, the same trawler would consume 475,258 gallons of petrol or 322,768.74 gallons of diesel. While the fuel consumption decreases at cruising speed, these numbers would still be high enough to raise eyebrows in shock. Consumption of even 1 gallon of petrol/diesel produces Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Sulfur (SO2), Nitrogen Dioxide (NOx), Nitric Oxide (N2O), Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and Hydrocarbons (HCs). One can estimate the damage that the Chinese Shipping vessels are doing to the environment. The Chinese Bottom Trawlers The majority of vessels that are engaged in distant-water fishing are trawlers and longliners. Trawlers are large boats that have large weighted nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a specified depth. Trawling is considered an ecologically taxing fishing activity that causes a lot of damage to marine life, marine habitats, coral reefs, and sea beds. The destruction of coral reefs where marine animals live and the breed has led to reduced population and marine diversity. This is leading to ocean acidification, warmer seas, and reduced oxygen levels in the water. While China has banned bottom trawling within its territory, it has encouraged its DWF vessels to conduct trawling activities close to other countries’ EEZs in Africa, South America, Russia, and littoral states of the Indian Ocean, South, and mid-Atlantic ocean and the pacific ocean. The Chinese Longliners Another type of vessel commonly used by the Chinese for DWF is the long-liners. Long lining is a type of fishing method that uses a large number of short lines with hooks which are then attached to a longer main line at regular distances. The main line can extend up to 10 km with thousands of shorter lines with baited hooks floating along the surface of the ocean to catch pelagic fish species such as tuna or marlin. However, the baited hooks can attract other species of fish too, resulting in a substantial amount of unwanted bycatch. Moreover, these long lines also kill larger animals such as turtles, sharks, whales, and even sea birds that come in the way of sharp hooks. Long liners are also notorious for ghost fishing. Ghost fishing is a term used to describe fishing done by any derelict gear, which is lost, abandoned, or discarded. Such fishing gear, uncollected by the fishermen, floats around in the ocean freely and catches and even kills animals trapped in them. The long lines, which float on the ocean surface, can detach or break if any ship passes over them. Once separated from the marker buoys, the detached lines are difficult to find, becoming ghost gear. Garbage dumps in the ocean Ghost gears contribute a lot to the waste generated by the longliners in addition to containers of marine oil, bottles, Chinese-labeled jute bags, etc. In the Galapagos Islands, Chinese boats have been dumping gigantic amounts of plastic waste in the water. They are responsible for killing wildlife and polluting the water of a place that is home to more than 7,000 endemic species. According to experts, about 30% of the garbage on the islands’ shores comes from Chinese fleet fishing at Ecuador’s coasts and marine protected areas.   At a time when all countries around the world are changing their policies in favor of environmental conservation, the Chinese are still aggressively engaged in activities that are extremely detrimental to the environment. Overfishing, dumping waste into marine protected areas, polluting air, water, and land alike, disturbing and destroying the coral reefs, killing…

Read More

BRIDES FOR SALE: Nepal

Editor05 mins

Women in Nepal are trafficked every year to China by strangers, neighbors, and families for sexual exploitation. They are also made to work in circuses, as domestic workers, in forced labor, or even are made to give up their organs. Many are often lured with promises of well-paying jobs in foreign employment or with fake marriages. Nepal stands to be one of the primary targets of China when it comes to sex trafficking on account of its massive unemployment and dubious financial status. Mostly the traffickers themselves lure these women and get married to them. This way they easily transport these women to China and sell them off to interested buyers. Because these Chinese traffickers are legally married to Nepali women, it is difficult to establish a case for trafficking. When caught, they usually have all the required documents. Statistics Chinese men pay around Rs 10-15 lakhs (USD 12500-18900$) to marry Nepali women to brokers. They also provide lavish gifts worth up to Rs 60,000 (USD 750$) to potential brides and their families. This helps to convince the girls and their families that they will have a better life in China. According to a report released by the National Human Rights Commission, the Nepali national human rights body, in the year 2019 alone as many as 15,000 women and girls including 500 children were trafficked, and these are just the known cases. It is estimated that more than 17,000 women (two fiscal years ending mid-July 2015) and girls are trafficked every year. The government of Nepal disputes these figures. According to them, only 181 Nepalese were trafficked in 2013, compared with 185 in 2014. In 2013, 56 women were rescued from their traffickers by an NGO. It has also been reported that the trafficking of Nepalese women to China for marriage has resulted in as many as 1,000 women being exploited by marriage bureaus with promises of citizenship, job opportunities, and good family life. According to the data gathered in 2019 by the National Human Rights Commission, on caste and ethnicity, 49%, the majority of trafficked women survivors are Indigenous nationalities, followed by Dalit at 15%.  Madhesis account for 6% and other ethnicities constitute the remaining 29%. Indigenous Peoples, Dalits, and Madhesis are the most socially, politically, and economically marginalized and excluded communities in Nepal. Tamang women are at particular risk. Routes Read about the ordeal of the Nepali women in the complete report.

Read More

BRIDES FOR SALE: Pakistan

Editor05 mins

Bride trafficking has been taking place from Pakistan around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the $62 billion flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Pakistan. The practice involved cases of fraudulent marriage between Pakistani women and girls — many of them from marginalized backgrounds and Christian families — and Chinese men who had traveled to Pakistan. The victims were lured with payments to the family and promises of a good life in China but reported abuse, difficult living conditions, forced pregnancy, or forced prostitution once they reached China. According to various media reports, many Pakistani Christian women and girls with a lack of Chinese buyers are killed and their organs are sold! An investigation by News Agency AP in 2019 revealed how Pakistan’s Christian minority has become a new target of brokers who pay impoverished parents to marry off their daughters, some of them teenagers, to Chinese husbands who return with them to their homeland. Many of the brides are then isolated and abused or forced into prostitution in China, often contacting home and pleading to be brought back. Christians are targeted because they are one of the poorest communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The trafficking rings are made up of Chinese and Pakistani middlemen and include Christian ministers, mostly from small evangelical churches, who get bribes to urge their flock to sell their daughters. Investigators have also turned up at least one Muslim cleric running a marriage bureau from his madrasa, or religious school. Omar Warriach, Amnesty International’s campaigns director for South Asia, said Pakistan “must not let its close relationship with China become a reason to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses against its own citizens” either in abuses of women sold as brides or separation of Pakistani women from husbands from China’s Muslim Uighur population sent to “re-education camps” to turn them away from Islam. Statistics Recently, there were several media reports suggesting that Pakistani girls were being lured into marriage contracts and then used for prostitution in China. One such report in 2019 put the number of such Pakistani girls at 600. The report also claimed that the average per ‘bride’ earnings was from USD 25,000 to 65,000, but a paltry amount of PKR 200,000 (~USD 800$) was given to the family. The exact number of women trafficked is not released by the Government of Pakistan. Routes Some women are trafficked to China along the route of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other are trafficked via sea route. Due to the close relationship between the two countries and the nature of regimes, the actual number of victims and the routes of trafficking are underreported or unreported. Attempts to whitewash by China China has issued a lot of clarifications and tried to whitewash the grave crime it has committed with respect to sex trafficking.

Read More

BRIDES FOR SALE: India

Editor02 mins

In India the modus operandi used by the Chinese for Brides Trafficking is different. Online dating applications like 2redbeans are flooded with profiles of Chinese Men. These profiles are then advertised to local service providers and matrimonial sites to target Indian women. Propaganda Youtube channels are created showing Indian women happily married to Chinese men. Other than this, Indian women from the North-East states bordering Myanmar are lured to enter Myanmar from where they are trafficked to China and other South East Asian countries. Propaganda is also done through Youtube channels. Chinese grooms can be seen in these videos with Indian women happily living after marriage in China. They are made to dance to Bollywood songs to get acceptance in Indian society. Routes Women trafficking from major cities in India is still at a nascent stage but from the North-Eastern states of India took place through Myanmar as the transit country at a much larger scale. India and Myanmar have a porous border with poor boundary demarcation. Women in the bordering areas in search of work or fire woods crossover to the bordering districts of Myanmar from where they are trafficked.

Read More
Laos Brides on Sale

BRIDES FOR SALE: Laos

Editor04 mins

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered poverty and economic downturns in the rural heartlands of Laos, fueling an upsurge in the trafficking of women and girls to China. Poor and illiterate women and girls who are desperate to find jobs are being deceived and lured into the sex trade and false marriages in China. Police are investigating more than 20 cases of underage Lao girls trafficked into China in 2021. Statistics At least 3,000 (reported) Lao women and girls were tricked into moving to China between 2008 and 2018 in spite of government education efforts aimed at stopping the trade. They offer up to 40 million kips (~USD 4,000$) ‘dowry’ to girls or women in poor families in rural areas, saying all they have to do is go to China and marry Chinese men,” she said Routes Laos is a landlocked country and shares borders with China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. It acts as a transit country for all its neighbors and a source country for brides to China. The lax management at border crossings resulting from the insufficient training of provincial and district-level immigration authorities especially enables illegal entry and exit from Laos. Additionally, Chinese traffickers have begun working with Lao middlemen to facilitate the transit of victims across borders. In NorthWest Laos the hub of all illegal activities and sex trafficking is the  Golden Triangle SEZ. There is a significant presence of Chinese businessmen and natives in the SEZ and women from all over South East Asia, particularly from Laos, are brought here as brides and then used in prostitution or trafficked to China.  The ordeal of Laotian Women A 25-year-old woman living in the capital Vientiane was trafficked to China last year, and was later rescued by police and sent back home. Speaking to RFA the young woman said she had been told by a neighbor that she could find good work in China. She said, “A woman in my village told me that she was married to a Chinese man, and she convinced me to go to China to get a good job. I decided to follow her advice, but in China, I was sold to a Chinese man instead of getting the job, and I was detained in the man’s house for four months. Later, I escaped somehow”.

Read More
vietnam Brides on sale

BRIDES FOR SALE: Vietnam

Editor08 mins

It has been reported that in the rural mountains of Vietnam, young girls are disappearing from their homes with increasing regularity. Many turn up across the border, sold as wives for the price of a buffalo. There, they are generally first sold into prostitution in big cities. After several months or years of forced sex work, they are sold again – this time to poor, older Chinese men looking for wives. Other Chinese bachelors use professional marriage brokers to meet Vietnamese women. Statistics On average, a broker makes a profit of USD 4,000$ out of each deal, according to the Chinese magazine China Reform. Vietnamese and Chinese authorities reported court cases that involved trafficking for marriage from rural areas in the north of Vietnam to China. Cases referred to include that of a Chinese man who engaged Vietnamese persons with local knowledge to find girls for marriages in China at the price of 10,000 yuan (approximately USD 1,500$) for each girl recruited. The recruiters then moved the victims across the border into Chinese territory where the victims were sold for marriage for the agreed-upon price. (Global report on trafficking in persons 2018) According to a 1999 survey by Dongxing Women’s Federation, 1,269 Vietnamese women are living in the city with a population of 120,000. Of them, 647 are married to local residents without going through legal formalities. Statistics from Dongxing Public Security Bureau indicate that 242 Vietnamese women are involved in the 74 trafficking cases recorded since The Pingxiang Public Security Bureau rescued 13 Vietnamese women between 1992 and 1997. All of them had been sold for “marriage” in China. In 2000, the bureau rescued 103 Vietnamese women, nearly half of whom had been forced into prostitution. According to Wei Xiaoning, director of the Women’s Rights Department of the Guangxi Women’s Federation, Guangxi police rescued and expatriated a total of 1,030 Vietnamese women during the crackdown in 1990. To date, 231 of these women have been rescued. According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the authorities saved about 7,500 people from trafficking between 2012 and 2017, almost 90 percent of them women and children, especially girls. Between 2012 and 2018, local authorities foiled 48 trafficking cases. Some 85 traffickers were arrested, and 78 victims were rescued. In 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, provincial authorities helped repatriate 60 Vietnamese women and infants taken to China. More than 1,000 cases were detected by June 2019 involving 2,600 victims. In 829 of them, the traffickers sold 2,319 people to China, according to ministry data released at a meeting on Tuesday. Routes Many cross-cultural relationships begin when Chinese men meet their future wives while working in Vietnam. Vietnam and China share a 1,000-mile, largely unprotected border without major natural barriers. The two countries have forged close economic ties through a free-trade agreement effective since 2010. Citizens from border areas of both countries don’t need a passport to cross back and forth. The destination for trafficking has extended from border regions to inland provinces such as Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Criminal organizations operating in the Northern province are mainly concentrated in three border locations: the city of Móng Cái, plus Bình Liêu and Hải Hà districts. In particular, Móng Cái – which has a border crossing – is now the main hub for human trafficking. One reason is that Chinese citizens entering Vietnam here do not need a visa for up to 15 days. Dongxing City, at the southwest tip of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in China, shares a 33-kilometer borderline with Vietnam, where border trade between the two countries is carried out. Women and children are trafficked using this route. Some women are also trafficked using the sea route as depicted on the map. The ordeal of Vietnamese Women Ha Thi Phan, 32, is from Mai Pha Commune in Lang Son in northeast Vietnam. She was a divorcee who became a coolie in 1991, carrying goods across the border day after day. “One day,” she recalls, “my hirer told me that if I go further into China I could earn more money. So I did, leaving my children to an acquaintance.” But on her way she was led to a Chinese woman who later sold her to a Chinese man in Ningming County, about 40 kilometers from Pingxiang, also a Chinese border town. The “couple”, so to speak, could hardly communicate because Hadid does not speak Chinese. “The man often beat me,” she says. “To win his trust I decided to have a baby with the man.” In 1993, two months after the baby was born, Ha persuaded the man into letting her go back to Vietnam and see her parents. “I made him believe that my parents were seriously ill and wouldn’t live long,” she says. In another case, Phạm Thị Minh T lives in the Mekong Delta, in south-western Vietnam. The young woman was duped and sold in China when she was 17 years old. There she was made to work in a brothel.

Read More
Myanmar Brides on Sale

BRIDES FOR SALE: Myanmar

Editor010 mins

The director of the Gender Equality Network (GEN), Daw May Sabe Phyu, said that every year hundreds of Myanmar women, especially from Shan and Kachin states, are trafficked to China as “brides”. Many are tricked into traveling to China to seek job opportunities, while some are kidnapped and held against their will to be sold to Chinese men seeking wives. Human Rights Watch published a report in 2019 called “Trafficking of Kachin “Brides” from Myanmar to China” based on interviews conducted with the survivors of brides trafficking from Myanmar. According to the report, the traffickers used deceit to deliver women into sexual slavery. Most of the women and girls interviewed were recruited by someone they knew and trusted. Of the 37 survivors interviewed: Some girls said they were drugged on the way and woke up in a locked room. Others were told, after crossing the border, that the job they were promised was no longer available, but another job was, several days’ journey away. Unable to communicate due to language barriers, and with no money to make their way home, many women and girls felt no option but to stay with the person escorting them, even in the face of growing unease. In Myanmar, conditions resulting from conflict, land confiscation, forced relocation, and human rights abuses have spurred widespread landlessness and joblessness, resulting in increased migration to China. Lacking proper documentation, language, and education, Myanmar women are increasingly at risk of trafficking, including forced marriage. Propaganda Videos by the state media To counter the growing uproar against the brides trafficking from Myanmar to China, Chinese state media from time to time release propaganda videos showing happily married Myanmar women living in China, but such videos are also reacted to by the locals sharply. Advertisements for marriages and surrogacy In 2019, residents of Muse, a Myanmar border town in northern Shan state that serves as a major trade hub between the two countries (Myanmar and China), reported seeing advertisements posted on lampposts and building walls. One ad with a headline reading “Invitation for Marriage” in Chinese and Burmese, gives the height, income, and address of an unnamed Chinese man who is looking for a Myanmar bride between the ages of 26 and 32. The ad also provides a contact number and says more details can be discussed over the phone. Other advertisements with the headline “Surrogate Mothers Wanted” say a company is looking for women under the age of 25 to carry the babies of Chinese men in exchange for payments of 13,000 yuan (USD 1,900$) a month plus meals and accommodations. The ads also provide a contact number. Statistics Over 7,400 women and girls were estimated to be victims of forced marriage in four districts (Kachin State and Northern Shan State) in Myanmar, with over 5,000 females forced to bear children with their Chinese husbands. According to burmese.dvb.no (archives), Bride prices offered range from 1,500,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 700$) to 6,00,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 3000$) and they are sold in China at the price of over 2,00,000 yuan(~ USD 30000$). According to the data collected from the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) and Myanmar Department of Social Welfare following is the number of reported women trafficked from Myanmar to China. (Most of the trafficking of women doesn’t get reported) Routes The majority of the routes are from the Kachin and Shan states of Myanmar directly to China’s Yunnan province. After the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state, many women are trafficked from Rakhine to Shan state and then to China. Other prominent routes include the trafficking of women from Myanmar to Laos and Thailand as transit. The ordeal of Myanmarese women Seng Moon’s family fled fighting in Myanmar’s Kachin State in 2011 and wound up struggling to survive in a camp for internally displaced people. In 2014, when Seng Moon was 16 and attending fifth grade, her sister-in-law said she knew of a job as a cook in China’s neighboring Yunnan province. Seng Moon did not want to go, but the promised wage was far more than she could make living in the IDP camp, so her family decided she shouldn’t pass it up. In the car, Seng Moon’s sister-in-law gave her something she said prevented car sickness. Seng Moon fell asleep immediately. “When I woke up my hands were tied behind my back,” she said. “I cried and shouted and asked for help.” By then, Seng Moon was in China, where her sister-in-law left her with a Chinese family. After several months her sister-in-law returned and told her, “Now you have to get married to a Chinese man,” and took her to another house. Said Seng Moon: My sister-in-law left me at the home. …The family took me to a room. In that room I was tied up again. …They locked the door—for one or two months.… Each time when the Chinese man brought me meals, he raped me…After two months, they dragged me out of the room. The father of the Chinese man said, “Here is your husband. Now you are a married couple. Be nice to each other and build a happy family.” Other stories of the Myanmarese women

Read More

Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0